


We Write Our Tragedies in the Stars

by rowofstars



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4702550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowofstars/pseuds/rowofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Star-crossed lovers don't have to end in tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Write Our Tragedies in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://anepidemic.livejournal.com/profile)[anepidemic](http://anepidemic.livejournal.com/) for reading this over and always making me feel better. And thanks to the crazy gals over at [](http://stillxmyxheart.livejournal.com/profile)[stillxmyxheart](http://stillxmyxheart.livejournal.com/)'s LJ-Comment-O-Rama for the laughs, encouragement and ♥.

They stand amongst the ruins at Palenque, staring down the steps of the temple, the lush smell of the jungle all around them and the stains of a thousand sacrifices at their feet. They watch as the sun slips under the edge of the horizon and the warm orange glow gives way to dark blue, and tip their heads to the sky as the first stars appear.

Her hand stretches towards the brightest point as she whispers a quiet question, “How about there?” He smiles in agreement and they’re off, rubber soles pounding the stone on their way to the bottom.

 

 

* * *

 

 

His fingers itch to touch the angry red mark on her neck, to trace the rough edges of it, name it and turn it into something beautiful. Maybe then he can forget that it’s his fault, the result of his carelessness and the cruelty of fate.

He wonders if the next time will be the last or the one after that, or one more still, until she fades with the dawn.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Cassiopeia,” he whispers over the warm skin of her hip, kissing a pattern from the jut of one hipbone to the other.

“You drew it upside down,” she teases, and he slides lower still, breath ghosting over her thigh.

He smirks and replies, “From your point of view yes, but I’m in the southern hemisphere.” She laughs at the exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows, but it falls into a sigh when his teeth graze a spot just inside her knee.

_Pegasus, Perseus, Pisces._

He knows them all, every pulsar and cluster and Messier body gracing the canopy of the universe. He breathes their names over her skin and traces the lines of their constellations between her freckles and scars. Then he sweeps her off to the next world, flings the Tardis doors open wide, and they watch the purple and blue convolution of the vortex streak by, their feet dangling over the edge into infinity.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They come from a place of darkness, of nothing, a hell of his people’s own making, and though he sends them back, they still manage to take everything from him as they go. He travels four hundred years forward and three thousand years back to find the right star at the right time, watching as it expands to the breaking point and then collapses in on itself. He stands in the open doorway, awash in startling color, remembering.

He marked Leo behind her knee, followed the tail of the lion up to the small of her back. Her lips were the same color as the swirling pink of Barnard 33. She moved over him like they had all the time in the world, her head falling back as she climaxed, her face framed by the hot blue glow of the Pleiades.

He runs with no particular destination in mind, memory hot on his heels, but everywhere he looks he sees pieces of her scattered amongst the dust of creation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She hates being so close to the city, where the lights of civilization pollute the sky and fade the stars until she can barely make out her favorites. She needs to see them to feel whole, to stay sane in this place where she doesn’t belong.

Lying in bed, she looks out the window across the room and picks out the brightest star she can find, following it in a straight line to the next one and the next one after that. She doesn’t have the right names, doesn’t know what shape they take here, and she doesn’t bother to find out. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

_Sagittarius, Scorpius, Taurus._

She can feel them; feel the way he would write them with his fingers and mouth over every inch of her until she glowed like the center of it all. Then one day they begin to disappear, and her skin aches with their loss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The wind that whips across the sandy beach is chilling, but it’s nothing like the tight, empty feeling in her chest as the worn, blue wood fades from sight. He just stands there, in a suit she swears is mocking her, holding her hand like everything is going to be all right, except it never will be again. He turns to say something, and she wants to push her palms to her ears and shut out his platitudes.

Instead she just walks away, letting his words drown in the sound of crashing waves as the moon shimmers into being above them.

They don’t speak to each other for three days, and when they finally do there are harsh words and kisses and the slick slide of skin. Past and present collide violently, like atoms at the spinning center of eternity, fussing and splitting and giving birth to something new.

_Aries, Cepheus, Gemini._

They used to be his, back when time and space were only as far away as the flip of a switch and the universe was theirs for the taking. He speaks long lost names against the side of her neck as they move together, teaching her the shape of them all again. She loves him for it, loves the stars that raise goose flesh on her arms, drawn on her body in the invisible ink of his fingerprints, a familiar sky on her skin.


End file.
